KJToo

I don’t make a habit of directly copying what we post over at The Secret Lair, but I think this unfortunate occasion warrants an exception to the rule.

C.A. Sizemore has been a fan of The Secret Lair since day one. He has provided us with feedback and even contributed a manuscript that we simply haven’t gotten around to publishing yet. C.A. has been with us since long before The Secret Lair became a reality: he followed us here from The House of the Harping Monkey and Volcanicast, where he was a loyal, involved fan. I’m hard-pressed to think of a podcast that C.A. doesn’t listen to and equally hard-pressed to think of a podcaster who doesn’t know him. He is the best kind of fan we could possibly ask for and we are all lucky to have him.

This morning C.A.’s wife, Kelly, passed away unexpectedly. Our hearts, thoughts, prayers and deepest condolences are with C.A. in this difficult and tragic time.

I’ve taken down the tip jar because there is something better you can do with your money today: you can give a little to help someone who has always been there for us, a loyal fan like no other. Please visit the donation site established by Mae Breakall and give what you can to help C.A. cover the expenses that tragic events like these always incur.

Posted May 12, 2008 Comments(0)

“Kris Alan Johnson!”

Rarely were those three words strung together unless I had committed some egregious offense. It is common practice, after all, for a parent to employ a child’s full name in the face of an infraction so dire as to warrant prison time (if only the little miscreant could be tried as an adult).

Less severe offenses occasionally elicited a “Kris Alan!” from my mother, but the full name was reserved for truly despicable deeds.

Had I been an entirely rotten child, I suppose it is quite possible that my mother would have grown tired of constantly evoking my full name and determined that simply calling me by my middle name would be sufficient to indicate that I was in deep trouble and to distinguish her summons from those (rare) occasions when she wasn’t ready to wring my scrawny little neck.

But I was most certainly not a rotten child.

Joseph Martin Johnson, on the other hand, must have been a thoroughly rotten child, for to this very day everyone calls him “Martin”.

Except me, of course. I call him “Dad”.

Posted February 28, 2008 Comments(7)

I rolled out of bed at a few minutes before eleven this morning, despite hitting the sack at just a few minutes after midnight. Kyle and I had a little breakfast, then watched Blue’s Clues and Jack’s Big Music Show. After a bit of reading and rough-housing, Laura came home, Kyle had a late lunch and I headed over to record a Stories of the 3rd Wave segment at Erie Vista Studios.

Now I’m back at home watching The Backyardigans: Super Secret Super Spy with Kyle while Laura cleans her office in preparation for potential houseguests on Thanksgiving (which really crept up on me this year).

Tomorrow after work I’ll head over to Planet Retcon Studio 4 to record Volcanicast, which will complete my podcasting obligations for the week.

Did I mention that the proximity of Thanksgiving caught me off guard this year? I obviously have a lot to be thankful for and I’ll get to that a little later this week. Right now I’m realizing that we’re hosting the big meal and could have up to fifteen people at the International House of Johnson in just a few days. Yikes.

Ah, but there will be pie. Pumpkin pie. I will fight a legion of ninja turkeys for a piece of pumpkin pie, if need be.

Posted November 18, 2007 Comments(5)

A few days ago, after changing the left front turn signal and putting new wheel covers on the MVoD, I decided it was time to re-stow the jack that has been rattling around in the back for several months.

Like folding a map or trying to get an inflatable bad back into its original packaging, stowing the jack turned out to be nearly impossible. The handle comes apart in two separate pieces, which must be inserted into a plastic sleeve that in turn wraps around the jack. The whole bundle is then crammed into a little cubby hole and held in place by a plastic bracket that will not fit around the jack and handle once they are removed unless one is willing to defy at least one of the fundamental laws of physics.

“Sometimes,” I heard my dad insist from nearly eight hundred miles away, “you just have to talk to it.”

He grins every time he says it — the same grin I know I’ve inherited — because by “talk to”, he means “swear at”. Colorful invective is one of my father’s specialties; his bilingual tirades (usually directed at uncooperative machines) are practically works of verbal art.

My mother disapproves, of course. She is appalled that any of her children would heed their father’s horrible advice — which makes it all the more vexing when a stream of profanity proves to be the perfect lubricant for whatever needs unsticking.

“Come on, you miserable piece of-” I muttered under my breath, trying to wedge the jack and its handle back into the space behind the right rear wheel well, “get in there!”

Frustration increasing proportionally to the seeming futility of my efforts, my utterances grew ever more inappropriate until, finally, I was able to tighten the wingnut that held the retaining bracket in place.

“Sometimes you just have to talk to it,” I muttered to myself, wiping the sweat from my brow. “Thanks, dad.”

Posted June 18, 2007 Comments(6)

I have to admit to being a little out of touch with current CPU technology. Once upon a time, it was easy to get a rough gauge of CPU performance based on the processor’s speed. My desktop has a 1.7 GHz Intel Pentium IV, while Laura’s desktop is running a 1.1 GHz Pentium III. I watched as available processor speeds passed the 2 GHz, then the 3 GHz mark.

Last year, Intel and AMD both introduced dual-core processors, gave their products names like “Core Duo T2050″ and “Turion 64 X2 TL-50″, and tucked the processor speeds away in small print. I really didn’t pay attention, because I had no need to. Apart not being able to run a growing number of new games (probably a good thing), my computer was just fine; ditto for Laura’s.

That changed a couple of weeks ago when Laura announced that she would like to purchase a laptop. I’ve been wanting to get her one for a couple of years, but until Kyle came along she wasn’t feeling a need for mobile computing. With a curious, active one-year-old boy not content to sit quietly in his mother’s office while she checked her e-mail, designed a birthday party invitation, or scoured eBay for … stuff, Laura realized that it would be nice to have a laptop she could take into the living room while Kyle busied himself with toys and chasing cats.

So last Saturday we went laptop shopping at Micro Center in Mayfield Heights. A lifetime ago (or so it seems), I worked at this very store, and several of the good folks I worked with are still there. I tend to shop around a bit when I want stuff like software and recordable media, but when I want hardware I always head to Micro Center. The fact that they sent me an e-mail coupon for $150 off all notebooks in the store Friday night didn’t hurt, either.

I’d done a little poking around in the store throughout the month (purchasing a new wireless mouse, a Linksys wireless router, and a copy of Norton Internet Security 2007), so I was pretty familiar with the laptops in our price range. I had narrowed it down to three models, and the extra $150 off pretty much cemented the deal. Laura is now the owner of an Acer Aspire 5102WLMi, and I would be remiss if I didn’t provide system specs:

• AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-50 CPU (1.6 GHz)
• 2 GB RAM
• 120 GB, 4200 RPM hard drive.
• 15.4″ WXGA TFT display
• ATI Mobility Xpress 1100 graphics adapter
• DVD+/-R drive.
• Integrated 802.11b/g wireless network adapter
• Windows XP Media Center (with a free upgrade to Windows Vista, if memory serves)

I know the Turion 64 X2 processor running at 1.6 GHz is faster than my 1.7 GHz Pentium IV, but I have no idea how much faster. Apart from initial system setup, installing OpenOffice.org, Firefox, Thunderbird, iTunes and Quicktime and watching the HD Ghost Rider trailer, I really haven’t played with it much. From what I can tell, it’s a very nice machine and will serve Laura’s needs quite well.

I can’t help but wonder how Star Wars: Empire at War would run on it, though.

Posted January 31, 2007 Comments(2)